Souta could have ignored the small comment easily. He could have moved on, for his feudal lord would look for him soon. After all, it was an inconsequential comment. How would anyone know whether he was lying or not, especially when he spoke so little? He had long learned how to prevent himself from having any behavioral tells or markers for whether he was lying or not.
Logically speaking, the other person was a scammer and had purposefully let him hear the murmur in order to arouse suspicion and doubt, and cause a disturbance in Souta's mental state. Such a vulnerability would then allow them to try to build a logical premise for how and why he should trust them, before, in a seemingly reasonable and logical sequence of events, going on to scam him.
Souta knew this because of the kind of exposure his feudal lord provided him with. Suzuki was a cunning man, and needed Souta to be well versed in every kind of established falsehood there was, not so that he could prevent them, but so that he could enact them.
Despite knowing all of this, he could not help but stop. Something in the man's voice... the certainty with which he spoke, yet the hush in his voice as if he was speaking only to himself... it told Souta that he wasn't making it up.
Yet when he turned and looked at the wide grin on the partner of the man who had murmured he suddenly had doubts. That was a scammer if he ever saw one.
"The name is Anakin Indiana McClane, friend. Why don't you hold on a minute and hear us out? If you feel like we can't help you, you're always free to leave.After all, there's no harm in just listening."
'Definitely a scammer, this one,' Souta thought to himself. Yet he stood still all the same. It was true, though. With how miserable his life was going, he really had nothing left to lose by listening to them.
"Have you heard of the Chamber of Secrets?" Anakin asked. "It's where we like to hold our meetings..."
Anakin's senses were tingling. He was about to make a huge profit. He just knew it!
*****
An hour passed by and the room where the Henali assembly was taking place was slightly more filled. The participants, those who did not hide their identities at least, continued to chat amongst themselves casually, though there was a tinge of anticipation in their eyes. They wanted to see how the situation was about to unfold.
At the exact one hour mark, when admission to the assembly hall closed, a figure appeared in the center of the hall. Everyone turned their attention to the figure, just as the figure looked out at the room. 2 of its 26 eyes, however, were completely fixed on a single card that read Innkeeper.
It said nothing before it began convening the meeting, but two of its eyes stayed fixated on the card throughout.
The audience was not disappointed by the lack of drama. On the contrary, they were even more enticed by the lack of it. After all, they were beings that did not plan out their day, but instead they planned out their millennia. It was the slow performance that got them riled up, the steady build up to a fantastic conclusion.
For now, just the direction of that single pair of eyes was enough to sate their craving. Of course, this was only for those participants that lived for this kind of enjoyment. Others couldn't care less.
*****
At the same time as the Henali assembly, which was being held by the highest most echelon of the realm, another assembly was being held. This time there was no Henali member to oversee the assembly, only their chosen representative this time.
Thus, presiding over this joint session that included the recognized empires, races and organizations, was a member of a race called the Starguard. A being made up of pure fire, its strength was extremely formidable.
At the same time, however, the Emperor of the Jotun Empire, who was sitting in the assembly, had never even heard of the Starguard race. He was seated in one of the middle sections of the room and even neared the top, even though the human race was considered, in general, much weaker than many of the races that sat even below the Emperor. It could not be helped, for he was not seated arbitrarily. He was seated according to the social rank of humans in the Origin realm which, based on common sense, should have been quite low.
This was because the status of a race was not determined by how large their population was, how developed their cultivation system was, or what kind of military might they held as a race. Instead, it was determined by the single strongest member of their race.
As far as the human race was concerned, in the entire realm, there was none stronger or with a higher cultivation level than him. Moreover, he was not the kind of ruler who sat on a bejeweled throne and passed down orders from behind safe havens.
No, the Emperor was a man so fierce that, besides being a ruler of one of the largest human empires in the realm, he had been hired as a personal envoy by the Henali. In a realm that did not naturally allow beings touching the Dao to be born, he was near what should have been the natural apex.
So his rule began with, and continued on while in the midst of eternal war. It was not his own innate logistical prowess that allowed the Empire to flourish. Instead, it was the secret help the Henali provided him in exchange for his excellent service that shielded his empire from downfall.
As it happened, while he was in the assembly, listening once again to drawl speeches about the future of the realm, and Henali's vision for its development, the Emperor once again received a missive. Once the assembly ended, he would have to visit a place called the Midnight Inn.
*****
From hours to days, time slowly passed. No one sensed anything unusual, for the most part, since they were used to the Innkeeper disappearing spontaneously. But a subtle tension filled the air that extremely few could detect.
Chad, the deputy director of security, directly under Gerard, began to notice Gerard behaving strangely. He was often absentminded and would occasionally disappear without explanation.
Things that were running smoothly up until now slowly began to have problems. Security, for one, began to cause trouble. Having two Earth immortals at the Inn at all times usually ensured that there wouldn't be any problems. But the universe was not without other immortals, and the Inn had already developed enough of a reputation that they could occasionally visit.
Though there hadn't been any direct confrontations yet, a few tense encounters had taken place.
What was strange, though, was that while usually Mary gave excellent orders to deal with the situation, this time she was being hesitant, and kept moving towards tolerating as much as possible.
Another issue was logistics. With an increased number of workers, everything originally ran very smoothly. After all, the system itself took care of so many things.
But with no clear upper management, and Mary herself acting out of sorts, alongside the Innkeeper's absence, many of the workers had to resolve their own issues. This often resulted in clashes or misunderstandings.
For most guests this was not a big deal, but for some of the older or more observant guests, this was a huge anomaly.
The number of Devils at the Inn had also increased lately, and while they created no problems themselves, they sent silent reports of everything that occurred in extensive detail. Who or why they were sending these reports to was a mystery, but they were not subtle at all with their actions.
As if to make things worse, a few days later, in the X-14 star system a huge, extremely coordinated battle took place that spanned multiple planets. The Dimitri family, despite being caught off guards, somehow managed to repel the attackers - with rumors abound that someone named Tetsuya played a significant role in resolving the attacks.
Yet the real issue that came to light was that the attackers all snuck onto the planets, and would then teleport to the Inn until the right time. Then, when given the order, they would return to the planets and launch an attack.
This information spread very quickly, and painted the Midnight Inn in a very bad light. Yet somehow, that attracted even more guests.
๐ญ๐ช๐ฃ๐๐ฆ๐ข๐น.๐ค๐๐
Mary was alarmed, for this was not what the Inn was supposed to represent, yet it was clear that people were abusing the system's capabilities while not breaking any of the Inn's rules. A hundred more minor issues were popping up.
The latest of which was happening today, on the day of Harry and Haileys wedding. A group of party crashers had barged in, and the situation was looking like it was deteriorating fast.
Harry and Hailey had been planning their wedding for a while, by their own standards. It had been a few months, and honestly they could not wait any longer. To be honest, there was no real need to either.
Due to the sensitivity of sharing his identity, Harry was not intending on inviting any of his friends from Earth to the wedding. Not that he returned to Earth much at all these days, but that did not change the fact that he did not want his identity disclosed. What if someone targeted his friends to reach him? He'd seen enough movies to know that greedy people could do anything.
Hailey, as well, did not want to invite anyone from her planet. In fact, she was even reluctant to return at all. She could not imagine going back to the ridiculously difficult and tedious life she had lived previously. Though she always knew she was being overworked, she had no idea just how much of a terrible life she was living till she saw the living standard at the Inn!
Still, while they had no invites from their own planets, they both had made plenty of friends with their identities at the Inn. Just coordinating and inviting all of them was a hassle.
Another reason Harry delayed was that he was secretly hoping the Innkeeper would also become free by then to attend his wedding, or possibly even officiate it. Unfortunately, on the morning of his wedding, the assistant Innkeeper told him that the Innkeeper had important business which kept him busy.
There was a tinge of disappointment in Harry's heart, but he suppressed it. It made sense, after all. The Innkeeper was an important man, he had better things to be doing than attending his employees weddings.
Harry had rented out the entire Midnight manor for the wedding despite the fact that there were perhaps a little over a 100 guests at most. For some people that number may be huge and for others it was small. For Harry, an orphan with no contacts of friends other than the ones he worked his behind off for, and for Hailey, a simple farmer girl previously, the number of guests was massive, and something they were very prideful of.
The guests contained, other than some of Harry's colleagues, some of his regular customers, friends he'd made at the Inn, as well as many of the contestants from Lady Cosmos who became friends with Hailey.
It was an absolute ball, since the wedding style they had opted for was a merger between traditional western weddings and those from Hailey's world.
Yet while they were dancing and singing and playing wedding games, things instantly went from perfectly joyous to deathly still!
A small group of guests from the race known as Gilati were at the Inn, and happened to be nearby the manor. Moreover, while they had not come to the Inn with devious intentions, when they saw Jill, the winner of the Lady Cosmos competition, attending a function at the manor things instantly deteriorated.
The Midnight Inn's security room immediately picked up their malicious intentions, but there were four of them and all of them were in the immortal realm or greater. The security personnel did not even have time to register the situation and try and attempt to resolve the situation before the four of them crashed the wedding with their auras full on display.
The strongest known members of the Midnight Inn were Qawain and Anita who were both at the Earth Immortal realm. They were extremely competent, but even so they could not go 2 against 4, especially when some of them seemed to be at an even higher cultivation realm!
The aura of the four put great pressure on everyone at the event, but even as they tried to understand what was happening, the four miscreants were not following the traditional bad guy sequence. Instead of peacocking and strutting about, as was the stereotype, all four of them surrounded Jill while one of them grabbed her by the throat.
"I heard you were saved by a dragon last time, but the dragon's not here now. I wonder who's going to save you now?" asked one of the four hideous, fat, blob monsters. The Gilati race were not humanoid, but instead looked like a fusion between a slug and a beetle, in that they were too disgusting to describe. All that mattered was that copious amounts of ooze that came off their body, and the many number of creepy limbs.
"This is the Midnight Inn! Do you know what you're doing?" asked Harry forcefully as he gathered himself up from the shock of what was happening, and the pressure of the four beings. Yet instead of answering him, one of them only flicked one of their limbs his way, attacking him from a distance.
Like a cannonball his body launched from the venue at a speed none could follow, his state completely unknown.
Everyone paled and a few guests immediately departed from the Inn, directly teleporting away. But not everyone could teleport away, and the Inn staff had no idea what to do. Even Velma, who had been extremely stressed lately, momentarily faltered, especially because she could follow the trajectory of Harry's body. From the Midnight manor it had launched all the way to the Midnight mountain! There was no way a normal human would survive that attack!
*****
A few hours earlier.
John, one of Lex's few temporary workers, had been working at the Inn for a long time - nearly a year, in fact. Considering his age, this was not actually a long time, but due to the nature of his system, and thereby his profession, he was not suited to stay in one place for a long time.
He had received his system very early in life, so it and the quests it gave out had ultimately influenced John's life more than he had ever originally realized. Only many years later, after he got caught and imprisoned, did he take the time to reflect on his life.
It was inside of a prison cell that he realized thatโฆ while his life may have seemed destined to head on this path, it had not necessarily needed to be that way.
Still, these were the thoughts of a man full of regret, and with no hope for the future. All that changed the day he entered the Inn. From the moment he entered, he no longer thought of mundane matters such as regrets, or how his life could have been. Since he saw hope of escape, that was all he was focused on.
Still, the chains that bound him were not simple at all. How could they be, when they so thoroughly bound an Immortal? Moreover, it was so sturdy that it managed to resist any ability or item his system was able to provide him with.
So while he was vulnerable and on the journey to break free of his restraints, he decided to stay at the Inn. Yes, the Inn often had unusual or dangerous guests, but while the Innkeeper was around, John felt incredibly safe. Then the Innkeeper went away on certain business, and things began to head downhill for him.
Without the Innkeeper to hold down the fort, the security of the Inn took a huge hit. More than once people had tried to invade it, though even from far away the Innkeeper managed to provide solutions.
But while security issues were handled, somewhat, more issues arose. The most significant one wasโฆ John was pretty sure that the assistant Innkeeper knew about, and could in some way, influence his own system. Though his system did not behave strangely at all after that one quest to eliminate the Raskals, it set his mind at unease.
But while he was thoroughly disturbed by that thought, the reward from that one quest was extremely useful. John ended up getting what was called a 'Jericho puzzle piece'.
Initially, this did not entice him at all whatsoever, but when he got the reward he realized how truly useful it was for him. He learned from the description that this Jericho which was being mentioned was actually a copy of the first ever prison constructed in the entire universe. While it was just one piece of many, it had a very useful effect. It could help him solve puzzles, and the most important puzzle John had on him were his bindings.
It took him a long time, but he finally removed the chains. But he did not enjoy his newfound freedom as much as he imagined. After all, now he had a decision to make. He could return to his old life, or he could continue staying at the Inn for a while. There was no rush to leave, right?
Either way, he would decide after Harry's wedding. If nothing else, that kid had cut his hair for free for a year, so he owed him that much.
The four Gilati's paid no attention to any other guests, and only focused on Jill. Jill, on the other hand, was too afraid to think. Her mind had frozen out of fear, otherwise it would have occurred to her that she could teleport out of the Inn as well.
But as if the aura of four immortals suppressing her while she was only in the Golden core herself, one of them choking her further shut down her thoughts.
"You should have just obediently returned last time. Now we're going to make you pay for each extra day you've kept us waiting."
Tears started to run down Jill's face and she wanted to cry out that she did not know them, and had not run away from them, but her body was not responding to her wishes.
By now the Inn staff had also begun to recover from their shock and their minds raced as they began to think of what to do. Even Mary was looking for Qawain in a panic, while at the same time she was pleading in Lex's ear asking him to wake up. But Lex was still dormant, his body and mind completely unresponsive to any external stimulation.
There was only one person on the scene who was not reacting out of fear and shock - John. The situation had deteriorated too quickly for him to do anything, and honestly he wasn't the type to stand out against tyrants to help out a stranger. But when Harry was blown away... something unusual happened.
John's extremely experienced mind immediately judged that Harry was dead, for a mere Foundation realm human could not survive a direct blow from an immortal no matter the circumstances. His entire skeleton would have been crushed to bits and his brain turned into a Jackson Pollen painting by getting smashed against the mountain side.
There was a pretty good chance that his body's situation was even worse than what John had described, for he only accounted for the physical force behind an immortals' attack. If the immortal had used any other kind of force or technique, then perhaps there wasn't even a body to smash into the mountain.
Then he considered the value of each of Harry's haircuts. Considering that during his haircut, he would nourish and relax, and sometimes even reinvigorate the soul, his haircuts were not cheap. Then he considered how long they had known each other.
It was hard to determine, since John had not been keeping count of the exact number of weeks, but let's say they had known each other for 45 weeks. That 45 haircuts, each one worth a lot.
After some mental arithmetic, his valuation for the haircuts, when rounded off, came out to be exactly worth 4 immortal bodies.
"Payment accepted, initiate task!" said John, though for some reason no one heard his voice. Yet in his eyes, the time seemed to slow down, and the four immortals surrounding Jill were targeted in red.
Since his system was an assassination system it, of course, helped him immensely in carrying out assassinations. Creating the most efficient strategy for him was but one of its many abilities. Raising his cultivation whenever he assassinated someone with a higher cultivation level than him was another.
One of his favorite ways in which the system helped, though, was when it taught him incredible attacks. The cultivation world, at least for immortals, was quite different from lower levels. Things such as techniques and weapons, while helpful, took a supplementary role while the main source of an immortal's strength were an immortal's own tenets.
The attacks an immortal could use were also based on those tenets. John, though, as a system wielder, had a bit of a hack which was that the system could automatically teach him incredibly powerful attacks that had nothing to do with his own tenets. This was incredibly helpful, for having rare or powerful tenets was not actually a good thing for cultivation, and instead was often a disability. But for John, he could have all the benefits without any of the drawbacks for those rare tenets.
One such tenet that he had access to, only through the system, was the tenet of agony.
"Harrowing pierce," he whispered, as his body dissolved in the wind. No one seemed to notice his words, or even that he disappeared, the immortals included!
The next second though, something erupted out of the neck of the Gilati that held up Jill. It looked like a bone, still covered in blood and sinew, erupting from its body and extending impossibly high into the air. The strangest thing was, however, that the Gilati did not seem to notice. It did not scream or flinch. In fact, it had not even loosened its grip on Jill. Everyone around him too, continued to ignore it.
As if that wasn't harrowing enough, its blood kept oozing out of its neck, spilling endlessly on the ground. But that was far from the end of things. Another Gilati had a similar looking bone strike out of its body, but this time not from its neck but directly from its back. The third one soon had a similar bone sticking out of its eye.
But while three of them each had a single bone sticking out of their bodies, causing them to bleed endlessly onto the ground, the final one... the one that had struck Harry... it was like a pincushion. It could neither move nor think, for 800 bones were sticking out of its miserable body, causing him to be unable to move at all.
The scene was scarier than any horror movie for even in such a condition, none seemed to notice what was happening. After all, John was not done with them yet.
Immortal? Earth Immortal? A higher realm than even that? Since when did such things matter to an assassin? The life of an assassin was always filled with incredibly strong, incredibly skilled and incredibly hard to kill beings. After all, if it were easy to kill them, no one would hire an assassin in the first place. So an assassin, well at least a true assassin, never looked at such things. An assassin only looked at the opponents weakness, and these Gilati had way too many.
John, who had spent countless years imprisoned, suffering from a bleak future and a cage that suffocated not just his body, but also his heart, and who had also just witnessed someone he could barely call... a friend die... well he was in no mood to let them go so easily.
"Madeline's chambers," he whispered again, and this time pink soft ribbons rose from the ground and wrapped themselves around the four slugs, before they all disappeared. This time, everyone noticed, though they still were not sure what they saw.
One moment the four beings were dominating everything, the next moment they disappeared leaving a relatively unharmed Jill behind.
"I'll interrogate them for their purpose," said John out loud, suddenly attracting everyone's attention. But before anyone could ask any questions, he disappeared also.
There was a momentary stunned silence, before Hailey cried out, "Harry!" Trembling, she fell to her knees, unsure and unaware of what to do. What was going on? She couldn't understand.
One moment, it was the happiest day of her life. The next, everything had been ruined. The culprits had also somehow disappeared, though there was a vague premonition in her mind that they would very much regret their actions, but she did not care about that. She only wanted Harry back! Where had he disappeared to?
Due to her limited level, she did not understand that he had been attacked, only that he had disappeared.
Mary, who quickly regained her focus after seeing John act, immediately summoned Gerard and told him to teleport Harry to the Recovery room.
Gerard, who had just teleported to the scene of the crime, quickly teleported away again. Before anyone could see what happened to him, the old man put his hand on what looked like a meat bag and teleported away.
In a very rare occurrence, the Recovery room began operating the Recovery pod and the Organic Reconstruction Room at the same time, immediately beginning to reconstruct Harry's body.
The fact that this was being done, despite all odds, meant that Harry was somehow still alive - though no one could yet understand how or why.
The situation seemed to deteriorate and resolve itself in the matter of seconds. In fact, everything that happened had not even taken 20 seconds. Yet the fact that an Inn staff member was successfully attacked... and that no one had been able to prevent it... well, the news was like a domino.
The news spread like wildfire, and suddenly the fire of greed was lit in a lot of eyes. The method for the Midnight Inn's instantaneous teleportation from any planet ever... it was too valuable, and many began to have a few ideas.
It did not take long, in fact. Only a few hours later, in the main arena inside the village, the champion, loudly and proudly challenged the Innkeeper to a fight. That is... if the Innkeeper was not afraid.
At the same time, for the first time ever, elsewhere in the Inn, someone was trying to kidnap one of the Inn employees.